The law protects opponents of the
Supreme Court's June, 2015 finding that gay and lesbian couples have
a constitutional right to marry. The Protecting Freedom of
Conscience from Government Discrimination Act also protects the
“sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions” of
individuals and “private associations” opposed to transgender
people and sexual relations outside of marriage.

In an interview with Tm Wildmon, head
of the Mississippi-based American Family Association (AFA), Bryant, a
Republican, said that without such laws “church after church across
this country will close.”

“This is about the churches,”
Bryant said. “The next stop will be American Family Radio and it
will be Mississippi College, it will be St. Dominic's Hospital as
lawsuits will be filed. It will be churches where pastors can say,
'I can't perform that ceremony,' a lawsuit will be filed. It will go
to a federal court and the federal court will say, 'Yes, they should
be a protected class,' those who choose to marry and want to be
married in the church. And that church might lose its tax-exempt
status and they'll have to close. And church after church across
this country will close.”

“We think people of faith have
rights,” he
continued. “I know that's a strange notion, but we believe the
scales of justice must be balanced for those people of faith and
those that have other ideas about their desires in life. And that's
what the scales of justice must do, is be balanced. And we believe
that this is a step in protecting the civil liberties of people of
faith just as the First Amendment of the Constitution does.”

As critics of the law have noted,
clergy cannot be forced to marry gay couples.